The Cullowhee Native Plant Conference recently honored Gil Nelson with the Tom Dodd Jr. Award of Excellence for 2014. Nelson was selected for this award because of his “numerous important contributions in a surprisingly wide range of arenas related to the cause of native plants in the Southeast."
The award is named in honor of Tom Dodd Jr., a nationally recognized Alabama horticulturalist who was the award’s first winner in 1987. The Cullowhee Native Plant Conference is an annual meeting hosted by Western Carolina University. The conference is focused on increasing interest and knowledge for the propagation and preservation of native southeastern plants.
About Gil Nelson
Gil Nelson has many professional roles: naturalist, writer, educator, photographer, and researcher. He has authored or coauthored 13 books, numerous articles, and written two field guides. He has been a professional educator for over 30 years and is currently an Assistant Professor with the Institute for Digital Information and Scientific Communication at Florida State University. Nelson also actively promotes ecologically sustainable gardening and landscaping as well as biological collections digitization. He has been involved in numerous digitization projects and currently serves as a digitization specialist with iDigBio. Gil Nelson has shared his knowledge and experience with countless iDigBio workshop participants across the US in over 20 digitization workshops and symposia.
Want to Learn More?
- Read the press release from Western Carolina University
- Visit his Web site to find his books, articles, and photography
- Read an interview with Gil Nelson
- Watch a video of Gil explaining "iDigBio in a Nutshell" at the 2014 Entomological Collections Network Meeting
- Visit PanFlora, A database of plant Images, Flowering times, and plant information for the Southeastern United States
